I wish I could shout it out

Here it is: a wave of grief. A mixture of sadness and fear. 

The leitmotif of the past six months has involved change, letting go, transition, holding the uncertainty, limbos. And also beautiful growth, discovery, opportunities to come into myself more fully and live more authentically. 

But in the past few weeks these limbos have started to crystalize into real, actual, changes; into really letting go or closing down something specific while something else opens up. Which has often brought me joy and/or relief. But there’s also been pain. 

There’s pain now, today. It started seeping in again yesterday, certainly encouraged by my physical tiredness. 

There’s so much pain today. Sadness. Fear. And loneliness, so much loneliness. 

I’m surrounded by so many wonderful friends, old and new, nearby as well as scattered over the globe but still close, and I can feel the love and support from them. But I’m also keenly aware of how personal and solitary my journey is because it is my own unique experience. 

And so it is for each one of us, I guess — as Quasimodo wrote in his poem “Solitudini” (literally “Lonelinesses” or “Alonenesses”, plural)

“Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra 

Trafitto da un raggio di sole. 

Ed e’ subito sera.” 

Maybe today I feel this aloneness more sharply because I wish I could share some of these important changes with a few specific persons with whom I cannot share them, at least not for now. I wish I could write to them, tell them, “I’m becoming myself! I’m becoming a boy. I’m finishing a textbook that to me feels like the wrapping-up of a love-story, or a love-letter. I’m ending one phase of my career to start a new one. I’ll soon be completing my move geographically, with all the adieus that entails. I’m shedding a skin — and hopefully finding a new skin, one that fits me better, and a new home. I need this, I wanted this, and I’m looking forward to it. But regardless of how healthy and exciting these changes are, no matter how much I’m looking forward to these new stages of me & my life, there’s also loss, and pain, and learning to let go. Which isn’t easy.” 

There’s a few people to whom I would really want to say this, pretty much in so many words, but I cannot. Not now. Not yet. Maybe later, maybe never.